'
which was as much as to say,--
"'Let observation with extensive observation observe mankind.'
"After dinner he told us a humorous story of his enthusiastic fondness for
Quakerism, when he was at Cambridge, and his attending one of their
meetings, which had entirely cured him. When the little children came in,
he was in raptures with them, and descanted upon the delightful mode of
treating them now, in comparison with what he had experienced in childhood.
He lamented the haughtiness with which Englishmen treated all foreigners
abroad, and the facility with which our government had always given up any
people which had allied itself to us, at the end of a war; and he
particularly remarked upon our abandonment of Minorca. These two things, he
said, made us universally disliked on the Continent; though, as a people,
most highly respected. He thought a war with America inevitable; and
expressed his opinion, that the United States were unfortunate in the
prematureness of their separation from this country, before they had in
themselves the materials of moral society--before they had a gentry and a
learned class,--the former looking backwards, and giving the sense of
stability--the latter looking forwards, and regulating the feelings of the
people.
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